Tea Party Enabling Billionaire David H. Koch Moonlights as WGBH Board Member

Last
week's revealing phone call between a Buffalo Beast prankster and
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker clarified the extent to which
billionaire rainmaker David H. Koch manipulates public officials.

But
Koch doesn't just play puppeteer with politicians. He also has his hooks into public radio and television: although it has not been widely reported, Koch is a trustee at
the Boston-based WGBH, PBS's largest producer of web and television
content.

WGBH is in the midst of its own labor problems. The Boston Globe reported
earlier today that negotiations between WGBH management and nearly 300 union
writers, producers, and editors are deteriorating quickly. Yet there's been no mention in the media that Koch -- a vicious adversary of employee unions -- sits on the station's
board. (The Phoenix mentioned it years ago, but only because Koch's
brother Bill was spending millions to “protect” Nantucket Sound
from wind farms.)

Public
records show that Koch, along with his brother Charles, gave more
than $17 million over 10 years to groups that organize against workers. They also provided seed money for the private sector front
group Americans For Prosperity (AFP), which is currently backing the
union-busting Walker in Wisconsin and comparable efforts elsewhere.

A WGBH spokesperson tells the Phoenix that "the Trustees have no
involvement in the day to day running of WGBH," and that Koch "has responsibly fulfilled his role, supporting the
educational activities of public media and WGBH." Management has also denied allegations of union-busting. But with an avowed
enemy of unions on its board, it's hard for some to take that
seriously. At last month's Conservative Political Action Conference,
an AFP staffer even pledged to help “take the unions out at the
knees, so they don't have the resources to fight these battles.”

At
WGBH, these developments are unfolding as the future of public
broadcasting rests in the hands of the United States Senate. The
House of Representatives already voted to axe funding for public
stations like WGBH, while anti-NPR and PBS sentiment can be heard
wherever Tea Partiers and AFP henchmen are waging counter-protests against
union workers.

“This
whole thing is outrageous,” says Russ Davis, the Massachusetts
chapter president of Jobs with Justice, which represents more than
100,000 workers nationally. “It just doesn't make sense why someone
who on one hand is trying to destroy public broadcasting should also
be sitting on the board of this station.”